This invention relates to a holder for various types of balls, such as baseballs, softballs, basketballs, volleyballs, soccer balls, tennis balls, golf balls, etc.
During practice for various athletic endeavors it is common for coaches to require repetitive interaction between the athletes and the ball used in their sport. For example, during baseball or softball practice coaches are called upon to throw a number of consecutive balls for batting or fielding practice. Typically a number Of balls are placed into a container and carried to the place where the coach will be doing his throwing. The container is placed on the ground, or the balls dumped on the ground, and the coach must reach down to ground level each time he needs a fresh ball.
It is an object of this invention to provide a portable holder for a group of balls that presents the balls at an elevated height so that the balls are easily accessible to the user.
The holder of this invention is comprised of at least three support members that are joined together at their midsections, diverge outwardly and downwardly at their lower sections to form legs, and diverge outwardly and upwardly at their upper sections to form support arms. A cord is attached to the outer ends or the upper sides of the support arms to form a hoop and a net is suspended at its upper edges from the cord hoop, the mid-portion of the net extending downwardly to form an open mesh receptacle for balls.
In a preferred embodiment all of the support arms have identical lengths, and the cord hoop supporting the net can be attached to one of a plurality of attachment points located either at the end of the arm or along its upper side to allow the cord to be attached to all of the support arms at the same elevation or at different elevations.
In an alternative embodiment, one of the support arms is longer than the other support arms so that the net attached thereto forms an elongated ball receptacle.
In a still further embodiment, a longer support arm is provided that has an upper end that is higher than the upper ends of the shorter support arms so that the floor of the net slopes downwardly toward the shorter support arms.